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Muse musings

While at WFC this year, I had the very cool experience of having several people come up to me and tell me they liked my post(s) on convention networking. That was nice to hear, but then quite a few people told me that I should expand/rewrite it into a proper article and make the effort to sell it to a proper magazine-type-venue.

I’m a bit ashamed at myself that the thought had not even occurred to me until it was suggested. So, I think that will be one of my projects for the coming months.

I’m also starting to reap the benefits of NotNoHellNo (i.e. sticking the almost-done book2 in a virtual drawer and letting it stew for a bit..) This morning, while cuddling with the kid and watching Little Einsteins, I had a terrific flash on how to manage the Big Fix for one of the Big Problems with the book. (The flash had nothing to do with Little Einsteins, by the way.) The big reason that I had put the book aside was just because of that: I knew that there were some big problems with it, and the more I beat myself against it, the more I got screwed up about what was needed. I’ve been through this before, and fortunately the set-it-aside method has worked its magic once again. (My project for this afternoon will be to type up notes on exactly how this Big Fix is going to work.)

I’m also coming a lot closer to knowing just how my god/satan book is going to be structured. I’ve been in pretty heavy research-mode on this one, and the biggest thing I’ve discovered is that No One Agrees on how free will works. This is a very cool thing for me, since that means I can really do a lot with the concept.

Anyway, I’m trying to be more disciplined about setting out my writing goals, and then backing it up with the appropriate work since I really truly do want to build a career as a pro writer. Jack and I are in long-term planning mode for how it could work for me to quit the day job, and what factors would have to fall into place for that to happen. Ken Scholes had a really terrific post in his LJ about work and motivation, which is highly worth the time to read. His process seems to be much like mine, i.e. work hard andget it written. It’s funny how when I started really busting my ass with the writing I started experiencing something akin to success. Go figure. It’s much like something I overheard a bodybuilder say once: “The harder I work out and the cleaner I maintain my diet, the better my genetics seem to get.”

But I’m not going to say that luck doesn’t play a part. As Jay Lake has pointed out many times, publishing is not a meritocracy. Just because you’re the best writer with the best stories/novels doesn’t mean you’re going to have the best career as a writer. But if you haven’t backed up that lucky break with a lot of hard work, then that big break is going to slide right on by.